Last month, the Swiss surrealists Hans Ruedi Giger – a painter, sculptor, set designer, and the Academy Award winning visual effects master who brought the world the Alien – died at the age of 74 in Zürich, Switzerland. After suffering injuries he sustained in a fall, the man who mined his own nightmares in creating […]

In the course of becoming an indie writer, there is one aspect of the creative process which keeps coming back to me. To put it simply, it is the challenges and delights of world building – i.e. creating the background, context, and location in which a story takes place. For years, I have been reading […]

Hey folks! A lot of things have got me thinking about another old idea that I think needs to be updated and brought forward. This one comes from many years back, roughly 2007, when I was working on the series of short stories that make up my Legacies series. As one of several ideas I […]

If you were to get into a discussion with a true Star Wars fan, it would only be a matter of time before the subject of the Kessel run came up. Long considered one of the biggest enigmas to come out of the franchise, Han’s boast in A New Hope about his ship’s capabilities – […]

Patrick Stewart has to be one of the most awesome actors around, and not just because of his Shakespearean training. No, this is a guy who is equally at home being completely irreverent as he is serious, and I love him for it. So in honor of this guy, I thought I’d fish through the […]

After reading four of the five of the books in the ongoing Song of Ice and Fire series, I’ve come to realize something. I really like the world George RR Martin has created! In fact, you might say I haven’t found myself becoming so engrossed with a fictional universe since Dune or Lord of the […]

Since its inception as a literary genre, religion has played an important role in science fiction. Whether it took the form of informing the author’s own beliefs, or was delivered as part of their particular brand of social commentary, no work of sci-fi has ever been bereft of spirituality.Even self-professed atheists and materialists had something […]

Some recent news on the Neuromancer front: In addition to Mark Wahlberg and Liam Neeson being confirmed as the leading actors, who will be filling the roles of Case and Armitage, some rather interesting concept art has been revealed. Apparently, the art is the work of Amro Attia, a designer who has worked with director […]

Came across this article in Io9 recently, then again over at Scoop.it. You can tell something is important not only when it speaks to you, but when like-minded individuals begin referencing it! And if you own a blog, you definitely want to get on that! In any case, I found the list especially interesting for […]

It’s a popular concept, the fictional technology that could help us break that tricky light barrier. And it’s not hard to see why. The universe is a really, really, REALLY big place! And if we ever want to begin exploring and colonizing our tiny corner of it – and not have to deal with all […]